After this research, I learnt about the Elizabethan era and more about Shakespeare's life and writing style. My impression of Shakespeare and his works are that they are extremely difficult to understand and requires detailed studying to even understand one short paragraph of the play.
There were many differences in the Elizabethan era when Shakespeare lived as compared to today. Firstly, the education is different. In the Elizabethan era, formal education was limited, there were elementary schools for young children. Grammar schools for older boys, but hardly anyone would have gone to them and universities where some boys have gone, but very few as compared to today. Grammar schools and universities were for boys only. Girls were hardly educated. Upper-class girls were sometimes educated at home by tutors and sometime brothers, otherwise mostly have been taught by their mothers and household tasks would have been their main focus of education. Unlike today, there was no universal syllabus of education. The emphasis in grammar schools and in universities was on the learning of Greek and Latin. Secondly, the medical care at that time was not as good as today. The only surgery available at that time was for the setting of broken bones. Most serious illness was incurable. Most medical care was actually done by housewives as most people lived in the countryside where there were no doctors. Thirdly, the penal system was very harsh. People could get hanged for small offenses like stealing a very small amount.
Although Shakespeare is from another era, this plays can still be applied to modern day context, we still can learn moral values from his plays. For example, we can learn not to discriminate from the Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare's plays can always be applied to modern day context because shows the mistakes that people usually make. Since people are not god, they will always make mistakes and these mistakes are written in Shakespeare's plays.
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